New phones from Samsung, HTC to support “Facebook Home” app family

A flagship Facebook phone will come with the apps preinstalled.

Saying that a phone should be designed around "people first," Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg formally announced a new Facebook-centric smartphone experience called "Facebook Home" at a press event in San Francisco Thursday. Zuckerberg also announced a new handset from HTC named the HTC First.

The phone experience centers on the lock screen, which Zuckerberg said is the same as the home screen. The lock screen experience is named “cover feed” and can be navigated via swipes and taps. Swiping up from the cover feed produces an app launcher that allows users to access the rest of their apps.

Cover feed also allows users to browse photos, double-tap to like something, or leave a comment without ever unlocking the phone. Zuckerberg said that the interface is designed around "people, not apps." The interface bears many similarities to the stock Android UI.

The Facebook Home-enabled lock screen/cover feed.

A "chat head" message window.

A chat head alert popping over another app.

In addition to the lock screen experience, Facebook Home includes a feature called "chat heads," a messaging interface that uses chat partners' faces as tabs for their messaging windows. When a user is in any app, a “chat head” can appear off to the side of the screen. Users can tap the icon to enter the conversation and then swipe upward to take the messaging interface off the screen and return to the app they were in before. Both SMS and Facebook messages can use the "chat head" alert.

Facebook Home can be downloaded from the Google Play store starting April 12. When it's first launched, Facebook cautions that Android makes certain the user "really" wants to use it as the default interface, and the user can try it before committing to it as the default. Tablets will not be a party to the initial launch, but Facebook says the interface will come to that form factor "months later."

Initially, only four smartphones will support Facebook Home: the HTC One, HTC One X/X+, Samsung Galaxy S III, Samsung Galaxy S 4, and Samsung Galaxy Note II. Facebook stated explicitly that it is not forking Android or creating a Facebook operating system.

In addition to Facebook's new app suite, it is also launching a new phone named the HTC First that comes with the Facebook Home experience pre-installed. The phone will come in four colors (black, white, sky blue, and red), it is priced at $99.99 with a two-year contract, and its only carrier partner will be AT&T. Pre-orders for the phone open today, and like Facebook Home, it will ship April 12.

During the Q&A following the event, Facebook stated that only Android phones running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich or higher will support the Facebook home suite of apps. Initially, the experience will not include ads, but Zuckerberg said that advertising will eventually be present, particularly in the cover feed.

The Facebook Home experience will also have some granularity in the settings, where users can turn features like chat heads or the cover feed lock screen on and off. Facebook did not indicate any intent to bring similar functionality to either the iOS or Windows Phone platforms.

A Facebook phone has been worked over by the rumor mill since 2010, and its existence had been denied by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg until now. Screenshots and mockups of an OS and phone body design leaked Wednesday.

Facebook’s press event is currently in progress, and Ars reporters are on the ground liveblogging it minute by minute. We will update this article as more details become available.

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston

I don't think I could be more horrified with a phone than thinking it could be accidentally "liking" and commenting on Facebook posts while in my pocket (and supposedly locked). They're touting this as a feature??! The idea of a lock screen is to PREVENT accidental taps and clicks from influencing the behavior of a phone. The feature set they're introducing for the lock screen means it's no longer a lock screen.

Right after they said even the most popular phones only reach a small portion of their audience, they release an app for only a small portion of the most popular phones. I think they missed their own point.

thebonafortuna wrote:

I don't think I could be more horrified with a phone than thinking it could be accidentally "liking" and commenting on Facebook posts while in my pocket (and supposedly locked). They're touting this as a feature??! The idea of a lock screen is to PREVENT accidental taps and clicks from influencing the behavior of a phone. The feature set they're introducing for the lock screen means it's no longer a lock screen.

That's true of Android 4.2's homescreen widgets too, I'd say. Doesn't make your point any less true; it's just not as uncommon as you might think.

That's true of Android 4.2's homescreen widgets too, I'd say. Doesn't make your point any less true; it's just not as uncommon as you might think.

On 4.2, you have to actually unlock the phone in order to do anything from those widgets. Your Gmail inbox or whatever you've set up will be visible, but if you tap it, the phone/tablet will prompt you to input your unlock gesture/password/etc before it will open the app.

Their flagship Facebook app is awful, what makes them think they can do any better with a Home replacement? I thought companies like Facebook have the money to hire competent programmers, but maybe I'm asking too much.

Seems pretty likely. But you know what? The average user doesn't care about sharing data with Google, Facebook, Twitter, or whoever. If they did there wouldn't be a billion Facebook users or 500 million Gmail users.

It's like complaining about the frequency of Android updates from OEMs and carriers. Geeks get excited about it, but the average user just doesn't care.

What's the First look like? If it's really 4.3" 720p screen, sounds like it might be the Rezound 2 that I've been waiting for. Though, does it really only have 1GB of RAM? What about the internals? If it's not TOO gimped, as soon as a stable custom ROM is developed for it, I'm in.

So if this is just a new launcher why can it run on only 6 phones? If they aren't mucking with any OS code I don't see why this wouldn't run on a Nexus device. If they have messed with OS code then I don't see how this isn't a fork..

Both Sense and Touchwiz have special code in their OS overlays that allow them to do nifty things with widgets that isn't in standard Android.

The One X and S3 are both running 4.1 and have the latest HTC/Samsung code compared to the rest of those company's products. My guess is they tapped into those APIs/functions specific to those versions of Sense/TW and that's why you don't see it on Motorola, Google, LG, or Sony

While that sounds reasonable, building specifically on Sense or Touchwiz doesn't seem like a good move since you're restricting your user base to only devices with those APIs. I've used plenty of apps that are replacement launchers/lockscreens so the idea of building one yourself doesn't seem like a stretch and is something Facebook could do if they really wanted to. I would guess that using a specific device distribution of Android might have something to do with the camera features of the phone; those devices have much better camera software and drivers and Facebook might want to take advantage of those features. Otherwise if all you are doing is writing a launcher/lockscreen, then 4.2 lets you extend that pretty well already. I understand Google might not like it, but I can't imagine that they have more restrictive hardware/software than anyone else in the Android community.

I wonder if this requires Android 4.2? A few months ago, a Samsung rep told me that the next large update for my S3 would be coming in April. It's not unreasonable to think that Facebook would have a firm date from Samsung and the carriers.

If 4.2 is the key issue, why is the Nexus 4 excluded?

It's released by Google. They won't allow anyone to install shit on their hardware.

Right after they said even the most popular phones only reach a small portion of their audience, they release an app for only a small portion of the most popular phones. I think they missed their own point.

thebonafortuna wrote:

I don't think I could be more horrified with a phone than thinking it could be accidentally "liking" and commenting on Facebook posts while in my pocket (and supposedly locked). They're touting this as a feature??! The idea of a lock screen is to PREVENT accidental taps and clicks from influencing the behavior of a phone. The feature set they're introducing for the lock screen means it's no longer a lock screen.

That's true of Android 4.2's homescreen widgets too, I'd say. Doesn't make your point any less true; it's just not as uncommon as you might think.

One of the many reasons I moved away from Android. I feel almost blessed to have found WP8, as silly as that might sound.

I wonder if this requires Android 4.2? A few months ago, a Samsung rep told me that the next large update for my S3 would be coming in April. It's not unreasonable to think that Facebook would have a firm date from Samsung and the carriers.

If 4.2 is the key issue, why is the Nexus 4 excluded?

It's released by Google. They won't allow anyone to install shit on their hardware.

That's ridiculous. This is just an Android app. They're releasing it in the Google Play Store! The only reason they're not supporting more phones is so they can be sure it runs well on the phones they DO support. Support will expand pretty rapidly, I expect, and eventually will be available on any Android device meeting minimum OS and hardware requirements, like any Android app.

I wonder if this requires Android 4.2? A few months ago, a Samsung rep told me that the next large update for my S3 would be coming in April. It's not unreasonable to think that Facebook would have a firm date from Samsung and the carriers.

If 4.2 is the key issue, why is the Nexus 4 excluded?

It's released by Google. They won't allow anyone to install shit on their hardware.

That's ridiculous. This is just an Android app. They're releasing it in the Google Play Store! The only reason they're not supporting more phones is so they can be sure it runs well on the phones they DO support. Support will expand pretty rapidly, I expect, and eventually will be available on any Android device meeting minimum OS and hardware requirements, like any Android app.

I up modded you, because I think your end-game thought process is correct, but I think rex86 is more talking about why it's not a debut phone.

So if this is just a new launcher why can it run on only 6 phones? If they aren't mucking with any OS code I don't see why this wouldn't run on a Nexus device. If they have messed with OS code then I don't see how this isn't a fork..

Both Sense and Touchwiz have special code in their OS overlays that allow them to do nifty things with widgets that isn't in standard Android.

The One X and S3 are both running 4.1 and have the latest HTC/Samsung code compared to the rest of those company's products. My guess is they tapped into those APIs/functions specific to those versions of Sense/TW and that's why you don't see it on Motorola, Google, LG, or Sony

So if this is just a new launcher why can it run on only 6 phones? If they aren't mucking with any OS code I don't see why this wouldn't run on a Nexus device. If they have messed with OS code then I don't see how this isn't a fork..

Both Sense and Touchwiz have special code in their OS overlays that allow them to do nifty things with widgets that isn't in standard Android.

The One X and S3 are both running 4.1 and have the latest HTC/Samsung code compared to the rest of those company's products. My guess is they tapped into those APIs/functions specific to those versions of Sense/TW and that's why you don't see it on Motorola, Google, LG, or Sony

Interesting. Do you consider those APIs a fork of Android?

Not really. I think they thought in order to do homescreens, interactions, or animations the way they wanted to, they had to add in a bit more stuff to make it happen. Some launchers and apps do some interesting things that probably have a lot of custom code, but I think HTC and Samsung put it throughout the OS opposed to just in the app or launcher, and maybe Facebook is tapping into those right now to make it easier to get it off the ground.

And I'm saying APIs when I really don't know what I'm talking about, it could be something more basic than that or even more extensive.

Not really. I think they thought in order to do homescreens, interactions, or animations the way they wanted to, they had to add in a bit more stuff to make it happen. Some launchers and apps do some interesting things that probably have a lot of custom code, but I think HTC and Samsung put it throughout the OS opposed to just in the app or launcher, and maybe Facebook is tapping into those right now to make it easier to get it off the ground.

And I'm saying APIs when I really don't know what I'm talking about, it could be something more basic than that or even more extensive.

I

My impression is that Sense and TouchWiz were more than just APIs but I also don't really know. My understanding is that they modified actual Android source code and is one of the primary reasons their releases always lag Android releases. I'm hoping FB has enough sense to stay away from those horrible code bases but you never know.

Just making a custom launcher sounds like a better way for them to go. Maybe, like others have mentioned, they are limiting their release so they can treat it more like a limited beta release.

You think most people don't lock their phones? I've never seen any data one way or the other.

I'd think the chat head feature would get more use than the lock screen feed (wouldn't you unlock your phone anyway if you wanted to use it?), but maybe I'm misunderstanding how it works.

I don't know about "most" -- I'd guess most people do use some sort of lock screen even if it isn't password protected.

In retrospect I'm a bit out in left field -- on a lot of phones the "lock" isn't anything but a swipe. Since I use a password, I was wondering why Facebook would think people who password protect their phones would be interested in displaying private info on the lock screen.

This feels strangely like taking a perfectly good phone and converting it into something like a Kindle Fire HD with Special Offers. Given the speed with which Amazon released a paid "upgrade" (or is that "patch") to remove the ads, I can't quite fathom the idea of people wanting to add commercials to the basic functions of the phone, even if it's "FREE!"

I don't know about "most" -- I'd guess most people do use some sort of lock screen even if it isn't password protected.

In retrospect I'm a bit out in left field -- on a lot of phones the "lock" isn't anything but a swipe. Since I use a password, I was wondering why Facebook would think people who password protect their phones would be interested in displaying private info on the lock screen.

Watching the videos I get the impression that what we're referring here to as the lock screen is actually the home screen, i.e. you would continue to see Facebook content even after "unlocking" the phone (regardless of whether it has a password). I think it would only disappear once you pull up the app drawer or launch an app. But maybe I'm misinterpreting the videos.